USA > Maine > Penobscot County > Orono > Historical sketch of Orono > Part 2
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More beneficial to Lower Stillwater, now Orono village, was the Stillwater canal. The Stillwater Canal Company was char-
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Iron Bridge over the Stillwater. Built in 1912.
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- Old Covered Bridge over the Stillwater. Built about 1831. -
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Present day bridge over the Stillwater. Built in 1950.
Electric Trolley on Main Street, about 1905.
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tered July 6, 1828. "It was intended for the passage of rafts," said Washburn, "from Upper Stillwater and above, to the Pen- obscot River below Ayres' Falls. It was not opened for the whole distance until 1835, though part of it had been previously used. Ludo Thayer, of Portland, was one of the contractors, and moved to this town about 1832." Remains of the ancient canal may still be seen here and there along its course.
The lumber business developed rapidly during this period and will be considered in another chapter. Other types of busi- ness came to Orono during the middle and late thirties. One was the Stillwater iron foundry which was built about 1836 and did business for a few years. The company finally failed because of the bankruptcy of some of the concerns with which it was doing business.
Another shortlived venture was the Stillwater Canal Bank, incorporated March 31, 1835. The first president, Albert G. Brown, was succeeded by Nathaniel Treat. Elvaton P. Butler was the cashier. The bank did little business after 1837 and was liquidated a few years later after a fitful financial career.
A more permanent investment between 1830 and 1840 was the cantdog factory built by John Bennoch, one of the leading businessmen of his day. Later the property came into the hands of the Edward Mansfields, father and son. They did a thriving business for many years in the manufacture of river-driving equipment such as cantdogs, poles, and oars, which had wide distribution.
During the decade Lower Stillwater was becoming village conscious and eventually wanted services that the voters in the other sections of the town were not willing to grant at town meet- ing. To meet the situation a village corporation was formed un- der the terms of an Act of the Maine Legislature approved Febru- ary 16, 1837. The act enabled the corporation to assess and col- lect taxes for fire protection only. The corporation functioned until the division of the town in 1840 when it was allowed to lapse. Thereafter a great majority of the voters lived in the village and could provide this service through the town organization.
These new developments were results of the remarkable ex- pansion that took place between 1832 and 1837 in connection
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with the Great Land Speculation and a corresponding increase in population. Said Governor Washburn: "The growth of Orono at the time was fabulous. The population, which, in 1830, was less than 1,500, rose, according to a census taken by the select- men in the spring of 1836, to about 6,000, of whom nearly 1,900 were in this (Orono) village." Even when the bubble had burst and large numbers of people had moved away, there were more people in the smaller Orono after the division of the town in 1840 than there had been in the larger Orono ten years earlier.
Speculation in wild lands began in this area about 1832, reached its height in 1835 or 1836, and collapsed a year or so later. Land priced before the boom at 25 or 50 cents an acre sold later at ten times that amount. Fortunes were quickly made and as quickly lost. Millions of acres changed hands, some tracts several times. Colonel John Black, of Ellsworth, general agent for the Bingham estate, reported in 1835 that he had sold 275,000 acres of land in a single winter, "some townships at $3 per acre." Speculation was not confined to land alone. A speculator would bargain for a township, make a small down payment, get a bond for a deed, and then proceed to sell bonds. City and town lots were also bonded and sold in this manner. Wrote Hugh Mc- Culloch, a Maine native who was Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln and Johnson: "Buyers in the morning were sellers in the afternoon. The same lands were sold over and over again, until lands that had sold originally for a few cents an acre, were sold for half as many dollars." Naturally the latest buyer was caught "holding the bag."
The speculation had its amusing as well as its serious side, as was witnessed by the numerous stories afloat at the time. One concerns a Bangor deacon whose pastor expostulated with him for dealing in that kind of mammon. Evidently the deacon was seeing the seamy side of the garment just then, for he replied almost in the words of St. Paul to King Agrippa: "I would that thou wert altogether such as I am, except for these bonds." One of the tall stories relates that two inmates escaped from the Bangor almshouse one evening and before they were rounded up the next morning had made $1,800 each by dealing in bonds!
Orono was right in the midst of the speculative boom and
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had visions of a grand and glowing future. But let Governor Washburn, who lived here then, tell the tale.
"Bonds, conditioned for the conveyance of timber lands, of lots in Bangor, and in the villages in Orono, were in great de- mand, for which liberal, and sometimes very large, bonuses were paid. Retired capitalists, merchants, manufacturers, old sea cap- tains, and others, from abroad, had heard of the vast wealth of the Penobscot forests, of the countless millions of timber they contained, and of its marvelous quality. To own the bond of a township was to have an independent fortune, but to possess the title was 'wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.'
"This village, of course, had its bond brokers, but they flourished better in Old Town. The fortunes secured daily by transactions of this kind in that enterprising village passed any marvels that we read of in the Arabian Nights Entertainments. About that time wolf skins for sleigh robes came into fashion in this vicinity, and a man's fortune, or the number of bonds he held, was ordinarily gauged by the number and length of the wolves' tails that hung over the back of his sleigh. Stillwater, as this village was then called, did well in this line, Bangor better, but Old Town beat the world.
"Of course, when the woods above contained such vast and exhaustless wealth, the points below, where the lumber would be manufactured and shipped, assumed great importance. Lots in this village rose to city prices, and the man who did not own land or had not given a bond of village property was of very little account.
"Robert M. N. Smyth, otherwise called 'The Roarer,' a noted speculator, had formned a joint stock company, with Massa- chusetts capitalists as trustees and stockholders, and purchased Eayres' Island and several hundred acres of land, embracing, with the exception of a few lots, all the territory east of Main street, from Pine street to the farm of Stephen Page, as well as the Union Mills and the power at Eayres' Falls.
"The company, which was styled The Bangor Lower Still- water Mill Company, surveyed this large tract and laid it out into city plots - house lots, store lots, factory lots, water lots, etc .; and having reserved the best for itself, offered the rest at a pub-
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lic auction, held under an immense tent on Broadway, in June 1836. The sale was advertised in New York, Boston, Providence, Portland, and Bangor, and many people from far and near came to attend it. It was a beautiful day, and while the auctioneer was knocking down lots (50 by 100 feet) in Mr. Colburn's field, at from $500 to $1,000 each, the caterer, imported from New York, was still more busy in passing out crackers, cheese, and other appetizing edibles, to the attendant multitude, and pouring cham- pagne from the original bottles into huge wash tubs, from which each man helped himself at his own sweet will. These were flush days in Orono."
John E. Godfrey, the historian of Bangor, adds: "Before the public sale the Stillwater Company disposed of permits to lumber at the average rate of $4.50 per thousand, amounting to $140,000; sales of factory sites and house lots, $60,000. Sales by auction by Head and Pillsbury: permits, $127,000; factory sites, house lots, etc., $75,942; total $402,942. The sales exceeded all anticipations." Truly a round sum for those days.
Mr. Washburn now tells the sequel. "In the fall of 1837 there were changes in the Bangor Lower Stillwater Mill Com- pany, and its property passed into the hands of a new company formed in New York, called the North American Lumber Com- pany, of which the eminent judge, Thomas J. Oakley, and the Hon. Stephen A. Halsey were trustees. . But the fates were against the company, the times were hard, money scarce, and lumber dull of sale - and no trustees, however honorable, or agents, however able, could avert the inevitable doom.
"After the revolution and collapse of 1836-7, the population began to shrink, stores were wound up, goods attached and sold at auction, and a general prostration of business supervened. The lumber trade left those who were bold enough to engage in it to estimate their losses, rather than count their gains. In 1837 a 'drive' of as fine logs as ever floated from the Baskahegan brought to the operators less than enough to pay the bills for manufacturing and running from the mills to Bangor. Money, during part of the time between 1837 and 1840, was scarcer than it had ever been before or has been since; and to add to the in- convenience, and even suffering, experienced by the people, pro-
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visions, and especially bread-stuffs, were scarce, and ruled at prices dear beyond precedent. Indignation meetings, to protest against the high price of flour, were held at Bangor. I cannot, even at this distance, look back upon these cruel years without extreme pain." It may be well to add that not all the misery and distress was caused by the collapse of the Great Land Specula- tion. The whole country was then in the throes of the busi- ness depression that characterized the Van Buren Administration.
As the villages of Lower Stillwater and Old Town grew, rivalries and jealousies developed between them. These differ- ences were most apparent at town meeting and for some years there had been movement to divide the town. Finally in 1840 Old Town was set off and incorporated as a separate town under that name while Lower Stillwater retained the name of Orono. The new town had more than half the population - Orono, 1,521; Old Town, 2,345 - and received more than two thirds of the ter- ritory. Thus Orono became one of the smallest towns in Maine as far as area was concerned. Under the terms of separation Old Town assumed $6,600 as its share of the indebtedness of the town. Already economic conditions were showing signs of improvement and people were beginning to look forward toward better times.
Residence of Nathaniel Wilson, Attorney and Superintendent of Schools, on Pine Street. About 1850.
CHAPTER III
Growth Of The Lumber Business
Lumber has been the basis of Orono's business economy until recent years. For more than a century the Orono mills were busy sawing the pine and spruce that came down from up river into merchantable lumber of all kinds, but principally long lum- ber, shingles, clapboards, and laths. Then the pulp and paper mills were built around 1890 and sawmills gradually went out of business. Now the paper mills have ceased operation and the buildings have been turned to other uses.
The first sawmill, that started by Colburn and Eayres in 1774, stood on the southern bank of the Stillwater on what was known, a little later at least, as Narumsunkhungan Falls. This probably had one crude, old-fashioned, "up-and-down" saw. It may have burned, since Captain David Read, who came to Orono in 1793, built a mill on the same site. In 1796 he also built a sawmill, later known as the stone mill, on the Marsh Island side of the falls. If the Colburn mill was burned, it was the first of a long list of mills in Orono that were destroyed by fire or freshet.
Other mills were built, most of them after 1830, on two large dams across the Stillwater. The Lower Dam, so called, extended from Marsh Island Point to the south bank of the river. The upper dam, just above, was really two dams. The first one built reached from Marsh Island to a very small island in the river and was commonly called at one time the Treat and Web- ster dam and later the Babcock dam. The second extended from the island to the southern bank and was known as the Ben- noch dam. At one period there were at least twelve mills on the Babcock dam. Among the many owners before the Civil War were Joseph and Nathaniel Treat, Ebenezer Webster, Daniel White, Benjamin Brown, Asa W. Babcock, Samuel Veazie, and Benjamin P. Gilman. Among those interested in the mills on the Bennoch dam were John Bennoch, William Emerson, William Hammatt, Ard Godfrey, and Andrew G. Ring.
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On the Lower Dam, writes Mrs. Rogers, "stood the Read mill, afterwards known as the stone mill, the Rigby mill, the Perkins block, and another block of mills. On the mainland side were the Union block, containing sixteen saws, and the six-saw block. The Union block, six-saw block, Perkins block, Island block, and the first mills at the Basin were built between 1833 and 1838." The Websters operated mills on the Lower Dam for many years before 1893, when J. Fred, Eben C., and Alden P. Webster built a paper mill on the site of the stone, Rigby, Perkins, and Island mills. Owners on the Lower Dam included the Websters, Nathaniel Treat, Benjamin P. Gilman, and John B. Hill.
The other water power in Orono was at Eayres (Ayres, Ayers ) Falls at the Basin at the lower end of the village. The first mills here were built on a dam that reached from the west- ern bank of the Penobscot to Eayres Island. Later a low dam was built from the island to the Bradley side of the river. When the water was low, this dam could turn the whole flow of the Penobscot into the eastern channel under the mills. The Great Freshet and resulting ice jams of 1846 swept away the entire block of mills at the Basin, but they were soon rebuilt. Most of the Basin mills were once owned by General Samuel Veazie, of Bangor and Veazie, who was one of the largest lumber operators on the Penobscot in his day. Others owners before the Civil War included the Richard S. Palmer Company, and James Walker.
Daniel Norton, the historian of Old Town, gives the follow- ing information about the Great Freshet of 1846, which lived long and vividly in the memories of the residents of Orono and other river towns.
"About the 20th of March," he wrote, "commenced a heavy rain storm, which rose the water in the river to such a height as to break up the solid blue ice, which was two and a half to three feet or more in thickness. The ice in the tidewater started, but jammed again at the narrows, some three miles below the city of Bangor. The floating ice filled up the channel of the river, causing the water to rise so high as to overflow the lower part of the city, coming into the stores near City Point to the depth of seven or eight feet.
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"The jam of ice rose so high as to move the toll bridge be- tween Bangor and Brewer bodily from its foundation, complete- ly destroying it. The river continued to fill up, the jam backing up over Treat's and Corporation (Veazie) Falls, moving the Corporation block of mills, in which were sixteen saws, with other machinery, bodily down into tide water. The jam soon backed up over Ayers Falls, and the Basin block of twelve saws went down the river and brought up in the jam within a few hundred rods of the Corporation block, but considerably more broken up. The river continued to fill up over the Great Works and Old Town Falls, and over Quoik and Sunkhaze Rips. The last important object of destruction was the Old Town and Mil- ford toll bridge, which was torn from its foundation in the same manner as the Bangor bridge, and took up its march down the river."
Mills and bridges were replaced and as early as 1842 Ban- gor was boasting that it had become the largest lumber market in the world. That year about 119 million feet of long lumber were shipped to various ports in the United States, the West Indies, and Europe, besides vast quantities of laths, shingles, and other commodities. Shipments from the Port of Bangor in 1850 included 203,754,201 board feet of long lumber, 40 million laths, 110 million shingles, and 5 million clapboards, besides huge amounts of pickets, hemlock bark, box shooks, cedar sleepers and posts, hoops and hooppoles, and other kinds of lumber. Another indication of the size of the lumber business at this period is that when the booms on the Penobscot River above Old Town were full, they inclosed six hundred acres of logs.
A surprisingly large portion of this vast annual harvest from the forests on the Penobscot watershed was manufactured at Orono. A great majority of the mills were located on the water powers at Milford, Old Town, Orono, and Veazie. Orono's slice of the business is shown by the fact that of the 154 single saws, 15 gang saws, and 41 lath machines in the four towns, 68 single saws, 9 gang saws, and 25 lath machines were in Orono on the Stillwater and at Basin Mills. Of the 204 million feet of long lumber shipped from Bangor in 1850, it would seem that 62 mil- lion feet were sawed by the Orono mills. In addition these mills
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had a yearly capacity of 19,000,000 laths, 2,200,000 clapboards, 2,000,000 shingles, 500,000 pickets, 20,000 barrels, 60,000 oars, and 40,000 staves. These figures appear to be fairly representative of the business for several decades.
Among the more prominent lumbermen who were citizens of Orono before the Civil War were John Bennoch, Ebenezer Web- ster and his son Ebenezer, Daniel White, Nathaniel Treat, Asa W. Babcock, and Benjamin P. Gilman.
John Bennoch, 1769-1842, was born in Scotland and came to America in 1793. With his partner, James Harrison, he came to Orono in 1806 and bought land and a double sawmill on Marsh Island. Later he built and operated mills on the Bennoch dam. He also kept store, exported lumber, and served as post- master.
The Webster family was prominent in the lumber business in the Penobscot Valley for a hundred years. Andrew Webster came to Bangor in 1771 and to Orono about 1795. His son, Colonel Ebenezer Webster, 1780-1855, was an extensive owner of mills and timberlands and was active in various other enterprises. It is written that he spotted and swamped out the Military Road from Mattawamkeag to Haynesville about 1828. "Colonel Web- ster," wrote Governor Washburn, his son-in-law, "was a man of great enterprise and public spirit, and for more than half a cen- tury was one of the most active business men and most useful citizens of the town." Colonel Webster was followed in the lum- ber business by his son Ebenezer, Jr., his grandson, J. Fred Webster, and other members of the Webster family. That part of Orono village located on Marsh Island has long been called Webster.
Daniel White, 1796-1862, was born in Orono and lived for many years on a farm which is now a part of the Campus of the University of Maine. "He was perhaps the only man on the Penobscot River," writes Washburn, "who, prior to 1850, carried on for a term of ten or more years the business of lumbering and always preserved his credit intact and unsuspected. . . . Colonel Webster and John H. Pillsbury were often partners with him, and when they were they were pretty sure to make money." His brother Samuel was also in business with him at times.
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Asa W. Babcock came to Orono about 1830 from Augusta. He built or controlled large sawmills on the Babcock and Ben- noch dams. For many years he was more extensively engaged in the lumber business than any other citizen of Orono with the possible exception of Colonel Webster.
Nathaniel Treat, writes Mrs. Rogers, "came to Orono about 1829, when he and three others bought land and erected a saw- mill on Bennoch dam known as the Treat mill. From that time until about 1860 he was a large land and mill owner. His broth- er, Joseph Treat, was also a lumberman."
Benjamin P. Gilman, 1799-1884, came to Orono in 1841 and conducted a large lumbering business for a long number of years. From 1854 to 1867 he was president first of the Orono Bank and then of its successor, the Orono National Bank. The farm where he lived is now owned by the Penobscot Country Club.
Let us now leave lumbering for the time being and consid- er some other events that took place between 1840 and the Civil War.
Considerable progress was being made in the field of educa- tion. Orono was one of the earlier towns in Maine to establish graded schools. In 1851, common, "select," and high schools were in operation. In 1851, also, Orono did away with school districts, forty-two years before the State of Maine abolished the inefficient school-district system by law. That year Orono had ten school houses, two of which had been built within the year. Fifteen different teachers had been employed, two men and thirteen women. Teachers' wages averaged $32.67 a month for the two men and $1.70 a week for the women. The average length of school was 25.3 weeks, and the average attendance for the year was 418, almost exactly half the number of pupils of school age (four to twenty-one years ).
The erection of a high school building had been for some time under consideration, and two able reports by the Reverend Henry C. Leonard, chairman of the school committee, influenced a favorable decision. The two-story building was erected in 1851 nearly opposite the Congregational church on Bennoch Street and is still standing. Members of the building committee
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were Nathan H. Allen, Gideon Mayo, and Ebenezer Webster, Jr. The upper story was used for the high school and the lower story for a grammar school. The basement was used for some of the purposes of a town hall until one was built more than twenty years later. The high school was commonly in session for three terms a year, a total of thirty-six weeks. For some years about thirty students were enrolled. Apparently the school was financed for a time by assessments paid by the parents of the stu- dents.
The citizens of Orono were far from being satisfied with the service given them by the "back road" which came no nearer this village than Upper Stillwater. Thus agitation began in the forties for a railroad from Bangor that would follow the Penob- scot River. In 1847 leading citizens petitioned for and received from the Maine Legislature a charter for the Bangor and Orono Railroad. Later the charter was amended to extend the line to Milford under the name of the Penobscot Railroad.
Work was begun on the road in 1851; but owing to the death of one contractor and the failure of another, it was not completed until 1868. In the meantime it had passed into the control of the European and North American Railroad Company, and was afterward leased by the Maine Central Railroad. The town of Orono had taken stock to the amount of $25,000 in the road which was eventually lost. However, the road through Orono village became a part of the trunk line from Bangor to St. John instead of its rival that ran through Upper Stillwater. "So I think, and especially since you have paid the railroad debt to the last dollar, that you well may regard that investment as the most fortunate the town ever made," was the consolation offered by Governor Washburn.
After the liquidation of the Stillwater Canal Bank, Orono was without banking facilities for some years. Then in 1852 the Orono Bank was incorporated. Nathan Allen was the first presi- dent and Benjamin P. Gilman the second and last. The Orono Bank was a state bank, and after the passage by Congress of the act creating National banks, this bank was closed and was at once succeeded by the Orono National Bank. Mr. Gilman was the first president of the new bank. Elvaton P. Butler was cashier
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of the first bank during its whole lifetime and of the second bank for many years. He was also treasurer of the town of Orono from 1844 most of the time until his death in 1884.
There were some good farms in Orono on the Bangor and Bennoch roads and on Marsh Island, but Orono has never been an important farming town. Perhaps its greatest claim to fame in this respect before the Civil War is that one of the most popu- lar varieties of potatoes, for some years both before and after the war, bore its name. The Orono potato, which in those days ranked with the Jackson White in excellence, is said to have been originated by a Mr. Read who named it for his home town.
Professional men in Orono between 1840 and 1860 included the following physicians: John Ricker and William H. Allen during the forties, and Ricker, Allen, F. S. Holmes, Charles Alexander, and J. H. Thompson in the fifties. The lawyers were Frederick A. Fuller, Israel Washburn, Jr., Nathan Weston, and Nathaniel Wilson in the forties, and Washburn, Weston, Wilson, and Matthias Weeks in the next decade. Although not a lawyer, Samuel Buffum, ?- 1859, was active as justice of the peace and postmaster for some twenty years. Said the Bangor Whig, "A magistrate for forty years standing he had probably tried more cases, cognizable under our laws by a justice of the peace, than any man now living in the state."
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